With the incredible advances in safety equipment in and standards, one would think that punch press amputations would be a thing of the past. However, they still occur today, and manufacturers with press operations need to be vigilant both about their safety equipment and practices, as well as their record-keeping

Extremely large metal punch presses can range in strength from about ten tons to 50,000 tons. Larger presses that exceed something in the neighborhood of 150 tons can cost into the seven figures and present a tremendous capital investment burden, particularly for the small or mid-size metal component manufacturer. Because of the incredibly high cost of this equipment, and because of the long life of the equipment and the possibility of retrofitting with modern safety devices, many ultra-heavy-duty punch presses are still in use today. It is important that older equipment both be retrofitted with modern safety devices that comport with industry standards and that records of safety modifications or changes be maintained.

Scott Brooksby recently defended a mid-sized manufacturer that operated a hydraulic punch press that had been manufactured in approximately 1928 and was acquired by a client in approximately 1979. After fifty-one years of continuous use, the punch press was still in excellent operating condition. One day, for reasons that are not completely clear, the press descended and partially amputated the right hand of the manufacturer’s employee. In the nearly 30 years before this accident, there had never been a single accident reported on the punch press.

These situations are often complicated by the number of, and nature of, control mechanisms, which can include foot pedals, hand pedals, electronic switches, buttons, or pedals that provide for slow “inch mode” movement, etc. Often different operators will prefer different methods of use. In this case, the primary operator was stationed at the front of the machine and would activate the press using an inch mode to set dies and then produce product more quickly as the operator at the rear removed and inserted the die in a continuous cyclical fashion, while the front operator operated the machine with a series of hand and foot pedals.

Although the press was originally built some eighty years before the accident, the manufacturer had diligently retrofitted the press with up-to-date safety modification, including 360-degree light curtains. A commonly relied on safety device, light curtains are designed to stop descention of the press in the event that a hand or any object penetrated the light curtain. In this case, the light curtains were installed both on the front and rear. The light curtain appeared to have been interrupted at the time of the accident. The precise cause of the accident will likely never be known.

After the press was acquired by the manufacturer, some add-ons and wiring and safety modifications were made. The precise timing of the modifications was unclear. The press was retrofitted with light curtains which were designed to prevent inch movement when the light curtains were broken. The front and rear light curtains appear to have been installed at different times. At some point prior to the accident, the light curtains were replaced with updated versions. As part of routine maintenance procedures, the press was fitted with a new brake in 2004 or 2005. The new brake was not a safety add-on. The brakes on the machine were tested immediately after the accident and found in good order.

When the State Occupational Health and Safety Administration investigated, the accident maintenance records could not be located.

There are two important things to learn from this case:

1. Virtually every steel company, metal company, or manufacturer of component parts using these materials will have old (even decades-old) equipment that is working perfectly well and is perfectly safe by modern standards through the addition of retrofitted safety devices. However, it is critical that such retrofitting be documented and that the documents be retained indefinitely, or maintained in strict compliance with a formal document destruction policy.

2. In most states, the OSHA agency conducting the investigation will want to interview, and will be entitled by statute or regulation to interview, employees involved in the workplace accident outside the presence of counsel, even if counsel has been retained and requested to be present. This warrants the cost and discipline associated with diligent training. Management should consider including a training module so that workers who are interviewed outside the presence of counsel focus only on speaking about what they saw, what they said, or what they heard others say, all limited to a first-hand perspective.

Despite the recent domestic economic downturn, global demand for steel, other metals and heavy equipment continues to increase in emerging markets and elsewhere. With the increasing demand for production, a potential source of personal injury that is often overlooked is quality control testing. Manufacturers face pressures to produce, poor communication with and between workers, and what can sometimes be decades-old equipment. This equipment has usually been continuously retrofitted and appears to function perfectly well, but that is not always the case and serious injury can occur during secondary procedures.

For example, Scott Brooksby defended a steel mill against the claim of a temporary worker who was subject to injury when he was struck in the head by a tail sample cut during sample burning operations. During steel production, tail samples are typically cut from sheet steel. At temperatures approaching 1300 degrees, the tails, which vary in size, are routed on a conveyor system into a sample burning room so that samples can be taken for routing to the laboratory to conduct tensile, radiographic and other quality control tests. The conveyor system is a series of metal rollers controlled by a series of steel gates that regulate the tail samples so that they do not collide and cartwheel into the air or fall from the conveyor, posing a danger to workers.

In Scott Brooksby’s case, a steel tail approximately 8 feet long and 1.5 inches thick was cut from a sheet in the main production roller room. At approximately 1350 degrees Fahrenheit, the sample, which approached 500 pounds, was routed into the sample burner room. Sample burning and many other quality control processes may take place in smaller rooms adjacent to the main production halls. The sample tail is diverted from the main hall after being cut from sheet steel via a steel roller conveyor system where it would pass through a series of gates controlled either electronically or by a set of foot or hand pedals. By the time the eight foot sample reaches the penultimate steel gate it has cooled to approximately 1,000 degrees. Theoretically, after passage through the final gate, the section is cut into smaller lengths, approximately 18-21 inches long, which can be used to stretch and test tensile strength or other quality control issues.

On this particular day, the final gate, at the sample burner itself (which is a laser torch used to cut the 18-21 inch tails), jammed shut just as the penultimate gate opened, allowing the eight-foot section to roll down the conveyor. The section collided with the sample still clutched by the final sample burner gate and cartwheeled into the air, striking one of the two operators in the head and causing injury before falling and smashing the electronic control system. The injured worker’s co-worker was able to deactivate further sample conveyance through use of a retrofitted electronic emergency estop. The steel mill processed approximately 30,000 samples per year and the age of the conveyor system was unknown, but believed to be in excess of 40 years old.

Such cases can be important reminders that the original testing equipment may function perfectly well, but may be retrofitted with any number of safety devices. It is critical that the documentation, if available on older machinery, be preserved and that any maintenance records, including the addition of such safety features as light curtains (which did not exist at the time older, but still functional equipment was manufactured). If a steel or metal mill, foundry, or component manufacturer is operating older equipment, it may be prudent to do a safety engineering study on machinery such as sample burners that exist in virtually every steel mill to determine whether retrofitting available safety devices is an option. For example, with the conventional sample burning conveyor system, it may be that the equipment is custom designed and custom safety add-ons such as horizontal spacers can be welded or bolted across the top of the conveyor at sufficient intervals so that the potential for a sample tail to cart wheel off the conveyor becomes impossible because any vertical force is arrested inches above the conveyor rollers.

If manufacturers have questions about the adequacy of the retrofitting of safety devices on older equipment, they should consider contacting the workplace safety regulatory agency in their state. In some states, OSHA will work with companies and may even provide free safety audits during which the party requesting the audit is granted a period of immunity to correct safety violations that are discovered. Manufacturers should check with their state safety agencies to determine whether such programs are available and should be sure to determine whether immunity from citation is provided in exchange for the voluntary request for inspection.

The additional safety precautions are particularly important in quality control test facilities such as the sample burning room where often less-experienced workers, or temporary workers who may not be sufficiently trained or conscious of the dangers, begin work.

Recall also that any such serious injury must generally be reported to OSHA immediately and certainly within 24 hours. In such cases OSHA investigators may also appear at the premises unannounced and, in most states, there is no right to have counsel present when OSHA is conducting its initial interviews with employees, so management should consider a plan for unplanned requests for interviews from safety investigators and ensure that employees are instructed in advance to focus on only what they actually saw, heard, or said during such interviews.